Linda Rosenkrantz - Talk

MARSHA: Tim doesn’t know who I am, that’s the whole thing.

EMILY: That really is the whole thing. Eliot knew who you were.

MARSHA: He knew who I was then, but I wasn’t myself.

EMILY: Yes you were, you were yourself then .

MARSHA: No, I was too neurotic to be myself.

EMILY: Yeah, Eliot doesn’t know who you are. Vinnie does. Merrill Johnston? No, it’s almost impossible for an analyst.

MARSHA: Very few people do know who you are.

EMILY: I’m putting these dishes in the sink because they’re making me nauseous.

MARSHA: Which of your abortions was your favorite?

EMILY: My Puerto Rican one, I loved it.

MARSHA: We had a great time with that abortion.

EMILY: Made-to-order vacation.

MARSHA: Cut-to-order, you might say.

EMILY: Very safe, no pain. Except that I was really scared shitless because it was my first. I was very brave, do you remember?

MARSHA: And I was very good to you, I played the husband. You didn’t even know me when I had mine.

EMILY: Philippe was a scoundrel. He was the father of my child, he had lived with me for almost three years, and on the night of my abortion he was screwing someone else. Do you think you can just throw out three years of your life? Yes.

MARSHA: Are you asking the right person? Yes.

EMILY: If someone who didn’t know Philippe asked you to describe him, what would you say?

MARSHA: I’d say he was a broken coil.

EMILY: That’s very good, because he’s so tense and yet so completely ineffectual. Those are the two biggest things about him, his tension and his passivity.

MARSHA: And this was your ideal man.

EMILY: Mentally tense, muscularly tense. I’ve seen him shake, he’s so fucked-up. Whew. It scares me how fucked-up he is. I think he could kill himself, don’t you?

MARSHA: Yeah.

EMILY: I know he’ll die before I do and I know how it will hurt me. But as close as I was to Philippe, he’s a complete stranger to me now.

MARSHA: You were never as close to him as you are to me.

EMILY: No, I wasn’t.

MARSHA: Of course it’s a different kind of intimacy in a love affair, it grows in the bed.

EMILY: Yeah? The bed was a little bit barren in our relationship, a lot of rocks in there. You should have put the milk in the can, Marsha — then you get all the extra goodies.

MARSHA: I got the goodies.

EMILY: I would suggest you put some fresh dill in the soup.

MARSHA: No, fresh parsley maybe.

EMILY: I’ll cut it up for you.

MARSHA: Just a little bit. I don’t want parsley soup.

EMILY: All right, give me a glass and some scissors, I’ll show you a great thing I learned.

MARSHA: I don’t call that a little.

EMILY: From Calder’s wife.

MARSHA: Very little.

EMILY: I wonder what possessed them to paint this ceiling red.

MARSHA: I like it.

EMILY: Marsha, what books did you read when you were a child? Did you like Nancy Drew?

MARSHA: Yah.

EMILY: I did too, I loved her.

MARSHA: Also Linda Carlton, Air Stewardess, I liked.

EMILY: Linda Carlton, Air Stewardess? Sissy shit like that you read?

MARSHA: I also loved dog books, Albert Payson Terhune. I had a thing about dogs, I had a whole collection of porcelain dogs.

EMILY: You and Laura Wingfield.

MARSHA: I also loved Negro books, Ann Petry. And I adored Sinclair Lewis.

EMILY: I never read Sinclair Lewis.

MARSHA: Main Street, Arrowsmith, Babbitt, Dodsworth, Kingsblood Royal .

EMILY: Isn’t this a marvelous way to cut parsley? Calder’s wife taught it to me. Actually it should be in a glass that’s half the perimeter.

MARSHA: How about turning down that Dionne Warwick?

EMILY: I love these lyrics.

And when you feel you

Can’t accept the abuse you are taking ,

Reach out for me ,

I’ll see you through ,

I’ll be there .

It’s really about us, it says to the guy when you’re broken in two, when you’re weak and abused and you can’t pick your fucking feet off the floor, you’re a total washout flunky failure, what then? Just come to old Emily Benson, she’ll nurse you, she’ll pick up all the pieces. Right? Take Michael Christy, perfect example. I’m telling him to reach out for me, I’ll see him through, if he wants a little bit of a drink, I’ll perpetuate his drunkenness and give him one because he can’t accept the abuse he is taking. Doesn’t it make sense?

MARSHA: It makes sense.

EMILY: I’m getting hot, I think I’ll put on my favorite outfit of today, the Emmett Kelly.

MARSHA: Oh God in heaven, please don’t put that on.

EMILY: I’m sorry, I’m putting on my Amagansett outfit.

MARSHA: Your Elmer Gantry?

EMILY: Let me ask you about something. I want to know exactly what you think of the new dancing. I’ve been sitting here trying to analyze it. Do you realize that it makes the woman equal to the man for the very first time? She doesn’t have to follow him anymore, he doesn’t control the rhythms, the music is something they share.

MARSHA: So she can express herself.

EMILY: Right, they’re now separate but equal, the dancing is all about individual style. Also, popular opinion to the contrary, I think it has more to do with relating than the old kind of dancing did.

MARSHA: You know those imitations you do of people dancing, you couldn’t have done them with the old dancing.

EMILY: No. Now there’s a rhythm and a generalized style to follow, but still the way Timothy Cullen does something and the way Nathan Fass does it are completely unique. Whereas if they were fox-trotting or whatever the fuck it was we used to do, even the twist, it wouldn’t have been that different. Okay, what else is involved? The woman is dancing; is she dancing for the man?

MARSHA: No, I think she’s dancing for the public. And they’re dancing out their relationship, if they have one.

EMILY: This is very interesting. For instance you know Andy Warhol won’t dance.

MARSHA: Yah, and some people, all they do is dance, like Tim. It’s the only way he relates, he doesn’t talk.

EMILY: Would you please give me a cigarette? I feel very lonely in my Elmer Gantry outfit.

MARSHA: Emmett Kelly.

EMILY: I feel lonely too in my Emmett Kelly outfit, even lonelier. And loneliest of all in my Amagansett outfit. Does anyone have a light for a lonely clown? I’m suddenly getting tears in my eyes.

MARSHA: Stop it, Emily, you’re making me nervous. Light your own cigarette.

EMILY: By the way, when I was in the Amagansett supermarket today, I saw one of my earliest childhood loves, a guy named Wallace Balfour. Do you remember the first person you were ever in love with? My first was a boy named Stevie.

MARSHA: Were you, as a child from about the age of six, constantly thinking about marriage?

EMILY: Never.

MARSHA: That’s all I thought about as I grew up, I was completely marriage-oriented.

EMILY: Maybe that’s why you never got married. But I’d like to get back to me now, if you don’t mind. I was around four, I was mad about this little boy named Stevie and I had him pee in a bottle for me. I loved it so much I put it on the dining-room table.

MARSHA: And your parents knew what it was?

EMILY: I put it on the table and then I got scared and dumped it down the toytoy. We also got undressed once and climbed into the bathtub together.

MARSHA: I never did any of those things.

EMILY: We were investigating each other’s genitalia when my mother came in.

MARSHA: What did she do?

EMILY: Nothing. She said, Emily, what are you and Stevie doing in there? So we pulled up our panties, jumped out of the tub and ran out of the bathroom. I have a picture of us at that age.